Nominations for 2013 are
being reviewed.
Your notes are welcome:
Editor@UpperWindpower.com
Most recent edit:
Saturday January 25, 2014

The 2012 Wayne German Award for Kite Energy

Cristina L. Archer

For outstanding leadership in:

wind information for kite energy

recognition of low-level jets for kite energy

communicated visions for kite energy in and beyond the kite-energy
community.

"First Lady of
Kite Meteorology"
~ WGClick image
Photo by Lisa Tossey

andKay Buesing
for providing long service to the foundations of kite energy in a singularly
important venue: the World Kite Museum.
Click photo to enlarge =>

Kay
Buesing of
the World Kite Museum could be the "Grandmother," having fostered kite
arches as a technical method for two decades and creating the first Kite
Energy museum programs and exhibits. She founded the museum back
in the '80s and leaves it in fine shape as the number-one Kite Energy
historical collection and resource. She is in the
Kiting Hall of Fame
(year 2003)
recognized as the top goddess in classic kite circles.
RelatedPage

Wayne German has recorded a stellar list of honorable-mentions for the year
2012: (he is still working on this section)=> Wubbo Ockelsfor multiplexing academia.
"And Wubbo.brought his fame and talents in space exploration to exploring ways
that the winds aloft might be harnessed to generate electricity. While the
methods he proposed--and appears still to propose might make us want to turn
him over our knees and spank the living day lights out of him, no one can deny
that he was a great pioneer in this area and threw many unsuspecting warm
student bodies at these projects and found and secured financing that causes
many of the rest of us to be so jealous that we say these things about him. No
doubt he was probably the most vocal and renowned person to have ever
attempted to promote high altitude wind power that the public has seen so far.
But bear in mind, the public never sees that far.
Bears-in-mind
often obstruct the public’s visual and cognitive abilities. One can only hope
that some day soon, one of the warm bodies thrown might be of a
dyed-in-the-wool aeronautical engineer who promotes wind power generated by
lift more than drag and from much of a wind field rather than just part. Tisk tisk.
Tisk tisk tisk!"=> Moritz Diehl for team spirit in academia. "Moritz
team should be canonized as representing in spirit--if not in practicality--the
effort to bring together people to work together from different disciplines
while all contribute their talents to the mix."
=> Drachen Foundation "for
even going out of their way to popularize kites in general in the younger
crowd and at grade schools and such.."

for
best future direction in kite design, development, and testing goes toPatrick Hanley
at Hanley Innovations, because none of us should be focused on just making one
sickle with which to sickle our wheat by ourselves. We should be focused on
making the machines that will enable us to manufacture combines as well as
possible.

*["Three
Musketeers" was in reality
four
with "D'Artagnan". D'Artagnan could be
Didier Costes,
inventor of "Chien de Mer." The combined experience of Stéphane
as a pilot and a navigator enables him to have the machine fly. He uses
the technology of the “Chien de Mer” conceived/invented by Didier Costes,
a polytechnician engineer."
Initially "chien de mer worked with an airship, and then became
"Seaglider" working with a parafoil kite.]

I know that many are predominantly motivated to pursue developments using
empirical methods. While that allows prototypes to be developed sooner and
more often initially, the people that design everything with software like
SolidWorks and then simulate and emulate in all conditions using products like
Patrick Hanley offers will eventually eat your lunch and leave you nothing
left. Most importantly, if everyone used this same tool chain or all of us
chose another tool chain together, then we could compare the performance of
one person's design against another person's design -- even though we may be
half a world apart -- and then we can make prototypes accordingly and test
them out. But the point is that real engineering then went into the designs
in all respects -- rather than just in the principle's and concepts.

And the best best reason to use software products like Solid Works and Patrick
Hanley's software for simulating and emulating is that no one anywhere would
actually need to have either -- provided there is a set on a computer
somewhere in the world that other computers could then access remotely. This
way any number of people in poor countries like Madagascar would only need to
have a laptop and satellite internet connection and all the rest could be
accessed on one or more computers remotely. And again, by using the same
tools we then would have a way finally to compare and contrast different
designs in exactly the same wind fields.

Finally: "There is not a lot of satisfaction in always being right if
everyone else is always left."

(Just kidding. But you can quote me anyway!!!)
God
bless,
Wayne German

=====December 31, 2009 for 2010==
For the coming year I suggest that we consider the following objectives:

1) Breaking away from the conference on high altitude wind power
generators. Their objectives are a lot different than our own. While they
should first prove competence in deploying their products in Low Level
Jets, so they can learn to walk before they run, they
invariably want to deploy directly into the Jet Stream directly
despite all common sense to the contrary.

2) Their objectives are to come together to sell themselves and their
wares rather than pooling their talents to help each other meet their
common objectives. Note how often when there was silence that I alone
continually pushed strenuously to increase the body of knowledge in our
small fraternity. Even among those of you who graciously still consider my
unsolicited input, I know that I must be a very mixed blessing. On
one hand I tenaciously strive to see the knowledge in our small fraternity
increased as fast as possible for our mutual benefit. On the other
hand I persist in consistently and conscientiously breaking all rules
regarding proper decorum by insisting on saying more than the half dozen
things that people in such social circles are apt to say. Worse yet, the
more that I would say, the less that others felt compelled to say -- I
expect because they felt that sooner or later I would make sure we would
cover all the important and relevant bases. Another way to say this is
that since I took the bow wave everyone else was happy to slide along
behind and reap the benefit and yet become more than a little livid that I
would be so assertive.

My real hope--the whole time--was
that any number of other people whose accumulated knowledge far exceeded
my own in many cases would rise to the occasion and do much to increase
our collective wisdom. Even so, that did not deter me. Here I was
after 35 years in the pursuit and having spent well over a thousand
dollars to be present for which I went into debt, I was not going to leave
our conference without making the greatest positive impact whether it was
appreciated by all or not.

But the fact is that there were people
there, and there are people who subscribe to this small forum who
know intellectually or experientially a vast amount of information that is
destined never to be revealed and to die with them unless we make big,
important, significant changes that motivate all of us to step out of
the shadows into the light of day and bless all with their knowledge and
insights.

3) I'm not sure how useful or desirable it is to reward any particular
insight or contribution. How do you compare the value of good conceptual
ideas against ideas that are reduced to prototypes, or later refined into
products that are sold. All aspects and phases are essential.

Our problem now--that I see--is that we
do not commit to link up appropriately. Us conceptual dudes should
fling our ideas on those who know better such as Dale Kramer who
should be our master teacher and greatest technical guide.

4) We need Dale Kramer [Dale
C. Kramer] about as much as the air we breathe.
Unfortunately, I understand that there are reasons why our small
fraternity needs to go out of our way to encourage him to come out of his
shell to join us. But if that does not work we need to go in and drag him
out. Such monumental talent cannot be allowed to slink off into the
sunset. I know. If we are going to offer an Award this year, let's
let it be: Dale Kramer for the "Whatchamacallit" he will be most
instrumental in helping our group develop this year. Why not be proactive
and award people ahead of time for the things they will do--even if we
have to spend the next entire year forcing and coercing them to do it?

5) What we really need most is a forum where daily or weekly we can be
progressing from concepts to ever greater concepts to suggestions on how
we could do such things most cheaply and or effectively.

6) Lastly, let's all welcome Stuart Semon
to our Group. Stuart has just recently been "liberated" from Intel. As we
all know, Intel is a great place to be from (far from). Stuart is at the
top of his game in most any software one might be willing to admit using.
Stuart has just "whipped" together software to allow us to communicate
like
GoToMeeting, but free. Who knows? Maybe we can appeal to his good
nature to "whip together" a forum for us all to use. This would allow all
of us to add our ideas on a continuous basis and provide a means for us to
connect our different "puzzle pieces" together to consistently and
conscientiously see our little fraternity morph into a really constructive
and continually progressing review of everything from conceptual ideas to
potential implementation aspects and beyond. Then all we would need to do
is add money; then presto: we would have any number of
fabulous tethered flight products.